Companies don’t just battle about ownership rights over certain inventions and new technologies (such as Waymo vs. Uber), they also engage in litigation over ownership of trademarks such as logos. One current example is PayPal’s suit vs. Pandora over the use of a stylized P. [To access a copy of the lawsuit, click here].
As John McCarthy reports for The Drum:
“Online payments firm PayPal has filed a lawsuit claiming online radio service Pandora’s Sans Serif P logo is ‘unlawfully similar’ to its own, a move that spells trouble for the brand’s new look. In October 2016, Pandora released its new branding, a somewhat familiar blue P that went on to overlay its creative in a visual manner, with some 31 colors and numerous designs. The work was done in-house. The PayPal logo was unveiled in 2014, by Fuseproject.
“The lawsuit was issued to a New York court, reading: ‘Pandora’s recent adoption of a new P logo, which is unlawfully similar to PayPal’s logo, threatens the interests of PayPal’s customers and disrupts their user experience. PayPal brings this action to remedy the harm Pandora is causing to the PayPal user experience and the PayPal brand.’ PayPal then pointed to social media posts from people allegedly confusingly opening the wrong apps on their mobiles due to the similarity of the logos. The legal action is weighted upon the fact PayPal claims that the manifestation of the problem has added friction to its customer experience.”
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Images by Pandora and PayPal.